Houston Asian American Archive Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University Interviewee: Yuriko Kajiya Interviewer: Priscilla Li Date/Time of Interview: September 16, 2019 Transcribed by: Priscilla Li, Daniel Ngo (10/3/2019) Edited by: Sarah Kong (10/13/2019) Audio Track Time: 1:08:09 Background: Yuriko Kajiya is a principal dancer at the Houston Ballet. Born in Japan in 1984, she started ballet training at the Shanghai Dance School until she competed in the Prix de Lausanne during her last year at the school. Winning the competition, she was awarded one year of study at the National Ballet School of Canada in Toronto, Canada. From there, she was accepted into the American Ballet Theatre in New York City where she performed and worked for fifteen years until coming to the Houston Ballet in 2014. She enjoys performing and being able to connect with the audience, in addition to giving back by coaching and mentoring aspiring young dancers. Setting: The interview was conducted at a study room in Fondren Library on September 16th, 2019. It lasted a little over an hour, and included Kajiya’s journey from Japan to China to Canada, and most recently to the United States as ballerina. Key: YK: Yuriko Kajiya PL: Priscilla Li —: speech cuts off; abrupt stop …: speech trails off, pause Italics: emphasis [Brackets]: Actions [laughs, sighs, etc.] (?): Unclear word or phrase Transcript: PL: Today is September 16th at two o'clock in the afternoon. I'm at Fondren Library interviewing Yuriko Kajiya for the Houston Asian American archive. My name is Priscilla Li. So, the first question is where and when were you born? YK: Um, I was born in Japan in 1984. PL: Okay. Um, and can you describe your favorite childhood memory? YK: Um, for me, all I can think of is when I was training in the ballet school. [laughs] PL: Okay. And, like, you liked practicing and—? YK: Not in the very beginning, but once I turned around age thirteen, I start become bunhead [laughs] and really liked just being in studio and practice. PL: Hmm. Was that your childhood dream to be a ballerina? YK: No, [laughs] a lot of people had – do ask me that just because I moved to China when I was ten to go to, um, ballet school. So, most people think, “Oh, I must really love ballet.” That I had to go to China to be trained, but no, [laughs] ballet just happened to be one of the afterschool curriculum that I did, and my parents wanted me to have a little bit of a culture difference and culture experience. Maybe stay there for one month, maybe two months, and then go back to Japan. But I ended up staying there for six years [laughs]. PL: Oh. And was it because you wanted to stay there? YK: Yes, but not because I loved ballet. No, not at that time. I really didn't understand it that much, but I – actually, my mom came and picked me up, um, I'm not sure how long after, maybe a month after? She came back because it's a national ballet school in China. It's government funded and it's very, very strict and all the students, they are handpicked by the government. Handpicked meaning like the ballet body, what we call the perfect ballet body. So, for out of the thousands they pick maybe ten or fifteen in one class and that's all they pick. And it was all done by the government. But I was, I'm from Japan and I'm not picked, and I went there because I— my parents paid the tuition and I actually found out later that the school actually told them, my parents that you shouldn't send your child here because your child is too young and she doesn't have the body and she won't last [laughs] because it's just very strict. But my parents told them that, you know, maybe stay for a month or two. I just want my daughter to get cultural experience. So, school agreed, and I stayed. But after a month or two later my mother came and say, you know, you don't have – cause she knew it was so, such a difficult uh, situation for me and the scheduling or the school is very difficult and very strict, and nothing like, um, when I was in Japan and the environment wasn't as great. It's very different now in Shanghai and in China, but back in the day they were, they didn't really have a lot of things. It was not the same as the living situation in Japan. So, so all of that together, my mother came and say, you know, basically say, “Honey, you don't have to work so hard anymore.” You know, it's not like I said I wanted to stay, or I said I wanted to become a ballerina. So, she said let's go home. But even though at that time I didn't like ballet that much. I wasn't very into it, but even though I was only ten years old and just a baby, but I just felt like I started some things for me to go back at that time, I will leave about a month or two later, just felt like a failure for myself. So, I told them that I want to stay. So that's how I started and stayed for six more years. [laughs] PL: How would you describe China's ideal body type for ballerinas during that time? YK: Um, well that's not only China, but it's, [PL: Okay.] it's for overall ballet world to be – in a perfect world, nobody has the perfect body, I don't think, but, um, they all look for long legs and long arms, but not just that, but, um, in ballet, all the joints has to be open, which is not normal for a lot of people. So, if you have a joint, especially for the hip joint, to be a little bit in that you have to do a lot of forcing and that's a lot of pressure for the joints and it’s, you just going to suffer a lot more than the people who are naturally open. So, they look at those things. The joints has to be open, the knee has to be small and straight or even hyperextended, or nice arch, we are, we like arched feet and so there are a lot of different things and I don't really have all of that. So, the school, that's why the school say, “your daughter doesn't have the body.” [laughs] PL: So, your peers were older than you – all, most of them? YK: Um, some of them were my age, but most of them are maybe a year or two older than me, my class. PL: And for ballet school, did they also teach you like school? Like academics? YK: Yes. [PL: Okay.] So, everything was in one, kind of like the Rice University, in one campus. In one school, they do everything in there. [PL: Okay.] Yeah. PL: Okay. And, um, can you remind me the name of the school? YK: Shanghai Dance School. [PL: Okay.] I think the name might have changed now, [PL: Okay.] but, mm-hm. PL: And the year you moved over was? YK: 1994. PL: Okay. YK: Mm-hm. PL: Um, and so, how would you describe your six years there as – training as a ballerina? YK: Um, looking back now, so hard, super strict, but can I do that going back right now? Probably not. But at the time I never felt difficult or hard or… or no, I think because everyone else was doing it. Like all my friends at that time were doing it all together. We were all in it together. So, I never felt like, “Oh, why am I only one suffering?” Even though I was there as a Japanese foreign student at age ten but there were other, maybe not a lot—maybe only like two or three other foreign students that are from Japan, and they were all in high school age, so a little bit —ten years old, quite a bit older. So, they would be like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and they were all homesick. I think part of it was because they understand the life much better than I did. I was too young to understand what's difficult. So maybe that's why it worked out [laughs]. PL: So, you didn't experience much of a culture shock from Japan? YK: Um, yes, I did, [laughs] but I didn't cry about it, [PL: Okay.] no, mm-hm. PL: Okay, um, and I saw that you can speak Mandarin. [YK: Yes.] Is that, did you learn Chinese before you went to… YK: No, I learned when I was there, [PL: Mmhm.] and I had a Chinese teacher who didn't speak any Japanese teaching me Chinese [laughs]. So, I remember when my first class was, she was trying to just gesture, this is how you say “you” in Chinese, but I didn’t understand what she was trying to teach me. So, a lot of – at that time we didn't have cell phones or, or this technology. So, we were looking at the dictionary and trying to search the word and she'll say that's, that's what I'm trying to teach you.